Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl with a whisk. Set aside. In another bowl, use mixerto cream sugar, butter and vanilla just until mixed. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add dry ingredientsand the milk at low speed. Then beat at medium-high speed for one minute.

If using Bartlett pears, quarter and core the pears (lengthwise.). For Bosc pears (which have a tougher skin), quarter and core the pears, then peel the quarters. Cut each quarter in half lengthwise and arrangethree rows of five slices evenly on sugar mixture in pan. Eat the sixteenth slice.

Bake for 45 minutes until center of cake springs back when lightly touched. Allow to stand in pan forseveral minutes before inverting on serving plate. Enjoy!

Mark Woodworth

(I omit 2 Tablespoons of finely chopped crystallized ginger, one in topping and one in the cake, and1/2 teaspoon nutmeg in cake, so I can taste the pears.)

We are still not able to get into the place where the potatoes are buried. We still need some drier weather in order to get a plow into the ground. So the mystery items will be probably items above ground. The honey is our own raw honey - straight from the hive! I do not refrigerate it, but just sit it on the counter. If it should crystalize, you can heat it or just use it crystalized. Many people prefer crystalized honey because it is easier to spead. When you finish with the jar, PLEASE RETURN IT! Try to find different recipes to use winter squash. This is their heyday - enjoy them! I made a side dish with acorn squash, onion, celery, and dried cranberries. It was a savory dish and was delicious with sausage gravy. There are many sweet or savory recipes for winter squash. Suncrisp apples are a nice, tart, crisp, yellow apple.

We will be butchering turkeys this week. We do not have many, but we will give the CSA first chance to buy them. Let us know if you would be interested in buying a turkey. I am sorry but we do not have a price yet, but they should be mostly 10-15 lb/each. They will be frozen. We have had them out on grass and have supplemented with a turkey grower (no animal proteins).

We have had a lot of response for the winter deliveries. We are coordinating delivery areas and possible days. We need to find a good convenient location near DOT that everyone near there can go to. If you want a delivlery at/near DOT and you have adequate space for a delivery and a place where folks can pick up their items, please let us know.

So far these places will deifintely have deliveries -DOT area, DC NE(between 10th and 12th St., NGS, Gangplank Marina, Bethesda(near Cedar Lane Church), JBS(North Bethesda), Rockville, Gaithersburg, Columbia/Ellicot City. We have had some response from these places, but need a few more for a delivery: River Park, Mt Vernon, Reisterstown, Westminster. Email if you would like to be part of a winter delivery to any of these areas.

We are located in the upper parking lot of the Unitarian Universalist Church 9601 Cedar La, Bethesda.

Check us out!

Send an email if you would like to order anything for delivery on Saturday. Iif you need bulk amounts of apples, pears, pumpkins, or anything let us know. We will try to provide it for you. We want you to consider us your local farm!

For Facebook users, you can "like" our new Facebook page. We will keep this page filled with updates and PICTURES!

We have great natural APPLE CIDER! Our own blend. Taste it for yourself - THE BEST!

The Stayman are a nice, tart, crisp apple. These are one of the first "keeping" apples. They will stay firm and good until about January. They do have some black soot on them because of the rainy year. You can rub it off and buff them up and they will look great on your table.

Don't forget - if the cider turns, you can boil it and then it will become sweet again. You can also freeze the cider for later.

I made the applesauce with Rambo, Smokehouse, Greening, and Cortland apples. There is no sugar added to this sauce. You can let this jar sit on the shelf for years, but once you open it, refrigerate it. When you are finished with the jars, please return them. We can reuse them. Remember when we reuse them, we are not wasting energy costs to recycle. When you recycle the jars, they have to use a lot of energy to remake them into jars again. Please return the jars to us!

The reason for 2 mystery items is that our vegetables took such a beating from the rain that there are not enough of any one vegetable to go around. You will definitely be getting 2 vegetables. They may be different from your neighbors vegetables. We just do not know who will get which ones, so it is as much a mystery to you as it is to us at this point!

We got a lot of positive response for possible drop offs for our Winter Vegetable and Fruit Delivery. Please email us if you are interested in participating. We are working on coordinating places, people, and possible fruits and vegetables for the first delivery in December. We will keep you posted as we get things figured out.

Dear Folks, We survived the rainest September in our history. We are finally digging some potatoes and sweet potatoes, yams, parsnips and getting out the remainder of the carrots and red beets. We had a good year for butternut and acorn squash. We are picking a lot of apples right now. Sun Crisp are almost all picked and then Stayman Winesap, Braeburn, and Fuji. We have a good many acres of these varieties. We have quite a few Ida Reds, York Imperial, and Red Delicious as well that we are picking right now. Northern Spy apples were all picked last week. We are taking some apples and pears to auction because we have run out of cooler space.

New Plans for the winter: We are making plans for a once a month Winter Vegetable and Fruit Delivery. If your neighborhood or business would like to have a monthly drop off beginning in December let us know

Here is how it will work: You will be able to go to our website and order items from our farm. You can pre-pay using paypal and or credit card. Then we will deliver to your business or neighborhood on the designated day. Weekday deliveries will be either Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursday. We aren't sure which day yet. We may do a Saturday delivery for neighborhoods if there is enough interest.

So if you would be interest in the Winter Deliveries - here are some of the things that you can buy. we have alot of acorn and butternut squash, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, turnips, neck pumpkins, orange pumpkins, some odd and unusual winter squash(hubbard, black forest, kiri and cheesecake), onions (while they last), apples (many varieties) Bosc pears, apple cider (unitil Christmas) Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. We will also have lettuce, greens and asparagus in April.

We will have our beef and bologna, eggs, honey, jelly and jam. We will also have pies and sweet bread for sale. We will offer Ed Breckenbill's cheeses and Apple Valley Creamery's butter.

We are making one stipulation for delivery - that your location have a minium $50.00 order - not each person, but each location. We will still bag each person's items separately, but the total for your drop off spot must be at least $50.00.

For Example: The National Zoo wants a delivery of Winter Vegetables and Fruit. The monkeys order $5.00 of apples; the elphants order $35.00 worth of pumpkins; the bird house wants 1 gallon of cider for $5.00 and the lions order filet mignon (of course) for $30.00. Each critter gets online and pays using paypal and we deliver everything (individually bagged for each customer) to the National Zoo on the designated day.

I hope this makes sesne to everyone.

FAQ about the Winter Vegetable and Fruit Delivery

1. How much does it cost? The costs are determined by what you order. No additional costs.

2. How often must I order? We will deliver once/month. We are asking each drop off spot to order a total of at least $50.00 each month. Each drop off location must commit to the 5 monthly deliveries.

3. What day will you deliver? We will deliver either a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday (depending on response) and possibly Saturday (depending on response).

4. When does the Winter Vegetable and Fruit Delivery begin? It will begin the week of December 13. January delivery will be the week of January 17, week of February 14, week of March 13. and week of April 17.

5. Can we get a delivery to our house? Yes, if you purchase $50 worth of things. You can go together with a friend, etc..

6. Can I buy meat and cheese as part of all of the $50? Yes, you can buy anything on the order form that will be on our website by Thanksgiving. (hopefully)

Please send us an email if you would be interested in participating in Our Winter Vegetable and Fruit Delivery.

We may be able to connect you with others near you who would like to participate as well.

We are also working with our webhost to allow folks to purchase shares online beginning in 2012. Just think - NO MORE STAMPS! and NO MORE NASTY EMAILS from me asking for money! We will let you know when this will be available.

We hope you enjoy the fall weather, the long evening hours and a bowl of good squash soup!

We are located in the upper parking lot of the Unitarian Universalist Church 9601 Cedar La, Bethesda.

Check us out!

Send an email if you would like to order anything for delivery on Saturday. Iif you need bulk amounts of apples, pears, pumpkins, or anything let us know. We will try to provide it for you. We want you to consider us your local farm!

For Facebook users, you can "like" our new Facebook page. We will keep this page filled with updates and PICTURES!

We have great natural APPLE CIDER! Our own blend. Taste it for yourself - THE BEST!

The Cortland apples is a white fleshed sweet/tart apples. This weekend I made an apple pie with Cortland apples. I cooked some cider, sugar and pecans and poured it over the top crust. It was delicious!

Enjoy the tomatoes. Each tomato I eat I keep thinking it will be the last of the season.

If you can't use all the onions right away, keep them in your crisper in the frig. They should keep for quite a while. I am freezing all the half rotten onions. I chop them and put them in freezer bags for use in the winter. They are great in soup.

Remember to give all the cartons and boxes back. Each quart box cost 12 cents, each pint cost 7 cents,each CSA box- $1.75, each tag - 75 cents, each strap to hold the tag - 11 cents, These things add up, so please return them to us along with the also jelly and honey jars too.

If we can get into the ground, we would like to give some potatoes and sweet potatoes, but it has been so wet that we can't begin to get a plow in the ground. Hopefully this week will be sunny and dry out the ground and help the greens grow. We are also having more trouble with rot and fungi on cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts this fall because of the wet and damp.

When you get tired of Concord grapes here is a SIMPLE way to make grape juice. Use a half gallon container with a lid. Put 2 cups of grapes in the jar. Add about 1 cup of sugar (or less if you like it tart). Pour boiling water over the grapes and sugar. Put the lid on the container and put in the frig for at least 4 days. (The longer the juice sits the more flavorful it will be.) When you want to drink it - pour off the juice and discard the grapes. Great juice! You can cut everything in half and use a quart container if you like. This juice will keep for weeks in the frig.

A word about the cider. Our cider is natural, unpasteurized cider from our own apples. Another farmer near us owns a cider mill. He makes the cider for us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So the cider is fresh. We use a different blend of apples in each batch - so each batch tastes different. Unpasteurized cider is very flavorful.

Warning - It is unpasteurized - so it will turn within 2 weeks. You will know it is turning hard when it gets a little bite ( like soda) to the taste and you can see bubbles comes up on the inside of the jug. Some folks love hard cider. ( We know a friend who can drink it when the plastic jugs are so puffed up that they won't stand up any more. Now that is a little TOO hard for my taste!)

If you do not like hard cider or you are giving it to children, you may want to pasteurize it yourself. Just empty the cider into a pot and cook it on the stove until it boils. Remove from heat. You can drink it hot (add a cinnamon stick and you have hot mulled cider) or cool it in the frig. It will stay sweet.

I like good sweet cider. My stomach can't take the hard cider. It is amazing how each person's intestinal flora are different. Some folks say that fresh unpasteurized cider "goes straight through them", yet hard cider sits OK. and other people are the opposite. It is your choice!

If you have never tasted fresh, unpasteurized cider before, please give it a try before boiling it. The taste is so good - no comparison to the stuff in the stores!

Cider can be frozen for later use. Be sure to leave a little head space at the top of the jug when freezing - or you will have a mess in your freezer. (We know from experience.) Beginning this week you can order extra cider if you like.

About Orchard Country Produce and Fruit Farm, Inc CSA and Farm Stands

Orchard Country Produce is a family-owned and operated, sustainable fruit and vegetable farm settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in the Appalachian Foothills. We work diligently to provide fresh produce&